“Come on, Vanessa, you told me yourself you wanted a chance to right the wrongs, to mete out well-deserved punishment to the terrorists and those fools who import their oil. I’m the leader of our group and what I do with Darius is none of your business. I make the decisions, select the targets, whip up the media and hopefully the public. Not you. You do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”
Had Darius pumped him up into this little Hitler? “I’m not your enemy, Matthew. Why are you treating me like one? After three months together, we were getting close, but then Darius showed up and everything started to change. You were closeted together for hours at a time. Some of the guys wondered if you were cozying up, screwing your brains out.”
He laughed. “No one thinks that; you’re making it up because you’re pissed at me. Darius didn’t want to screw me, he wanted to screw you, but you didn’t screw around with any of us, including me, even though you know as well as I do we’d be good together.”
Where had he gotten this scenario?
“You want to know what I told him? ‘Good luck, man, but know she’d yank out your eyeballs if you tried to force things.’ So, tell me, Vanessa, did Darius have the nerve to try anything with you?”
“Yes, once. I left his eyeballs intact. That’s not important, it was nothing.” Try again, try again. “Matthew, listen to me. I’ve worked hard for you and the cause, done everything you’ve ever asked, and more. Stop treating me like this. Other than Ian and Andy, I’m your only friend. Not Darius, and if you believe he gives a crap about you, you’re as crazy as Andy. He’s using you; he’s manipulating you. He has his own agenda, you’re simply too blind to see it. Or he’s blinded you too much to see it. Or he’s got you to buy into what he wants to do. And tonight? It was really your idea, Matthew? Or his?”
“Enough of your whining. COE is not about friendship or lovers. It is not about trust. We’re on a mission, and we each have our jobs to do. Get in line, Vanessa, or you’ll regret it.” More Hitler.
Now he was threating to kill her? Then, fast as lightning, he grinned, his hand once again on her knee, now caressing rather than hurting.
“Come on, babe, you’re getting all upset for no reason. You’re special, Vanessa. I’ve never said otherwise. You know I care about you. You’re a great talent, easy on the eyes, too, and you’re fun to be with, until now anyway. Be patient, okay? You’ll come around because you’ll see the payoff is worth it. Then who knows? Maybe you and I can have some time together. Maybe I’ll tell you everything you could ever want to know.”
He’d turned on a dime. He’d done it before, but never this fast, this radically. What has that monster made you? Who are you now, Matthew?
But she couldn’t let him see she was both afraid and killer angry. She said nothing more.
? ? ?
In another twenty minutes, in the dead of night, Matthew parked the car in the derelict lot next to the building—a car repair shop with an apartment on the second floor. It was a dump, but perfect for his uses. He looked over at Vanessa, still and silent, and got out of the car. He looked up at their darkened apartment, above the auto repair shop with its smelly bays. The whole place stank of gasoline and oil and old sandwiches and dirty men, but it was out of the way, and the owner of the shop had been more than happy to take the wad of cash Matthew had pressed into his greasy palm and shut down the business for an extended European vacation.
Matthew hoped the owner was enjoying himself, since if it came down to it, if necessary, he’d have Andy torch the building, and whoosh, no more business.